Timmy's birthday was a blast
By Sheila Donnelly/Austin Daily Herald

It is getting scary how dry it is. We really need rain. I don't remember my flowers ever looking so dried up before, as they are this August. The corn in the fields is drying up on the stalks. This week we aren't supposed to have any rain either. I saw on the news that the pope was praying for rain. There are wild fires out of control in Europe as they are out of control out in the western part of the states. One thing the dry weather is good for is outdoor work of mending the roads, building and painting. No one needs to mow their lawn as often either as the grass isn't growing. I like that there are fewer mosquitoes because it is so dry. It is also good weather to go swimming in these last few weeks before school starts.

My son Timmy turned 10 last Friday and I took four of his friends swimming at the Austin Municipal Pool. We were there at 1:30 p.m. and Timmy and his friends were the only ones going down the water slide. They liked that there were so few swimmers. When we left at 3 p.m. more people were coming so there would have been longer lines for the boys to take their turn to go on the water slide. We had a cook out for the boys at our house afterwards. The boys had a great time running all over our farm. Timmy got Legos, Bionicles and a toy airplane for gifts.

The boys took the toy airplane out to the pasture away from buildings and electrical wires to fly it. The plane came down in high weeds and it took them a while to find it. The plane was a hit but it was hot so that the boys came up by the house to sit at the picnic table under the shade to play with the new Legos.

While the boys were having a peaceful time doing this, Timmy's oldest brother, Danny, came to the party and gave Timmy his first BB gun. Timmy's friends live in town and became bug-eyed when they saw that Timmy got a gun. They forgot about the Legos and all wanted to hold Timmy's new gun.

Danny and Timmy's dad instructed Timmy on safety and told him and the boys to never point a gun at anyone. Then Danny set up empty cans to use as target practice. The boys didn't want to go home when they could shoot a BB gun. We had some old beer in cans that had been left outside for two months and they shot at them. They thought that was the best thing hitting the beer cans and having the beer spray out like a water sprinkler. I had to call one mother and tell her that her son was going to be late coming home as they were having too much fun shooting at beer cans and she said, "Well, that's one thing we can't do here in town. I'm glad he's having fun."

I told Timmy that he can't shoot at birds or I would take the BB gun away from him. So far he has been more interested in playing with his Legos and has gone outside with his BB gun when someone older is with him. I have only shot a gun a few times and I have little interest in shooting.

Tom is not very good at shooting things and doesn't like to hunt. When we do have predators in the yard like skunks we have had to call neighbors to come and shoot the animals. This year we had to have someone come shoot a skunk that wouldn't leave the yard and a woodchuck that was eating my garden. I'm glad that Timmy is having a chance to learn this new skill and he eventually will take gun training when he is older.

Summertime can be very busy
By Sheila Donnelly/Austin Daily Herald

I have been so busy the past week I don't know where to begin.

The first thing that happened was last week, I ran over a hen in my driveway. I don't think the hen caused it, but I when I got out of the car I saw that I had a flat tire. I was sorry for the hen but glad that I had the flat tire at home and not on some lonely road.

Right after I discovered I had a flat tire, my daughter Molly drove into the yard in her 1988 Honda with smoke pouring out and antifreeze spraying out of the hood. Bad luck comes in threes and that night my computer told me that there was no more memory and I could not save or print anything.

My children had downloaded too much stuff and too many games were on the C drive.

I got two new tires put on my car, took the computer to get fixed, but Molly's car has way too many things wrong with it and she is now looking for an affordable car to drive back and forth to college at St. Mary's in Winona. Good luck to her.

Last week was the final week of picking raspberries. I made jelly with most of the berries as I can never get all the black picnic bugs out of the berries when I make jam. I also made sauerkraut and it is fermenting away in a crock in the kitchen. My cucumbers are growing steadily and I will be making dill pickles.

This past weekend, I gave up trying to do anything in the garden as I took care of my three-month-old grandson, Tommy for two days. He is a good baby and smiles a lot, but when you have a baby around you might as well forget about trying to do any project, because it ain't going to happen.

I do live in chaos, but it was more so with a little baby around. My daughter Bridget and her boyfriend Lucas came and painted the dining room white with green trim and got rid of all the junk in the corners. Between feeding the baby, burping the baby, walking the baby, changing the baby, rocking the baby and cleaning the baby, I cooked for everyone. I recalled very clearly that when you are taking care of a baby you are really stuck with the baby. Tommy is a very nice baby to be stuck with because he is so adorable and everyone wants to hold him for 10 minutes or so at a time, but he is a baby and needs 24 hours of constant care.

Now I know what other grandparents mean when they say, "It's great when the grandkids come and it's great when they go home."

When Tommy left with his parents, all I wanted to do was sit and read. I kept thinking that when he went home, I'd get some chores done, but I didn't feel like doing anything but reading a book when my arms were finally free.

This week I will be at the Mower County Fair with Cari Quam on Thursday night in the Plager Building. County Fairs are fun events known for getting people with many different interests to come out of the woodwork to see what is happening right around where we live. Please stop and say hello.